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Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010
"This is the first time that these anthrax threat letters have been classified as domestic terrorism," says Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation, whose members had received over 80 anthrax threats by mail prior to Waagner's crime spree. "I think there has been a very big change in the way these crimes are being viewed."
"But," she says, "until we start looking at these individuals as part of a network that thinks it appropriate to murder people to accomplish their political objectives, we are doomed to looking at individual crimes after they are already committed."
Working Assets, meanwhile, has mounted its own letter-writing campaign to get the Justice Department to designate the Army of God as a terrorist group. "By even cautious standards," writes Working Assets president Michael Kieschnick, "the Army of God is clearly a terrorist organization and should be treated as such by the Department of Justice. Where possible, this should carry the following legal consequences, similar to those imposed on foreign terrorist organizations." Working Assets, which also incorporates social and political views as part of its marketing efforts, has given grants to Planned Parenthood Federation of America among other reproductive rights, environmental and social justice organizations.
Kieschnick points out that if his campaign succeeds, it would mean that it would be specifically against the law to fund or materially support the Army of God (and, by connection, Prisoners of Christ), just as it would any other terrorist group. Banks and other financial institutions would be obliged to block funds designated for the Army of God and report their actions to the Department of the Treasury.
But many of these groups receive their money directly, and not just through the conservative Christian phone service. Visitors to the Prisoners of Christ Web site are urged to sign up with LifeLine. "Help the prisoners with every call," supporters are urged, "10 cents a minute, 30 minutes free, plus 10% back to this ministry." All you do is "Call 1-800-607-5155 and tell them you want 30 free minutes and 10% of your long distance bill to go to" Prisoners of Christ. An announcement next to the ad for LifeLine also urges that checks "for general prisoner needs" should be sent to the White Rose Fund, care of one of the leading institutions in the Army of God network: Reformation Lutheran Church in Bowie, Md.
This church, headed by convicted clinic bomber Rev. Michael Bray, is best known for playing host to a Prisoners of Christ fund-raiser -- the annual White Rose Banquet -- a name misappropriated from a short-lived World War II-era anti-Nazi resistance group. Convicted anti-abortion felons and their most vocal supporters publicly gather every year on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade to celebrate their victories and raise funds for their imprisoned martyrs. This year's event has been announced on the Army of God Web site. Typically about 100 veterans of militant and violent anti-abortion activism gather to network, to raise funds, and to taunt the abortion rights groups and law enforcement agencies that monitor the event closely. Bray, for example, described the attendees at the 1997 banquet as an "august cadre of conspirators."
Last year's banquet featured a blatant appeal from convicted arsonist Dennis Malvesi. He thanked those who helped him -- without naming names -- and called on others to assist those "on the lam, from the lock gluer to the bomber [to] arsonists and snipers."
Apparently Malvesi wasn't asking anyone to do anything he wouldn't do himself. According to a federal indictment, he had been secretly assisting accused assassin James Kopp, who was on the lam in Europe at the time. But the feds were already onto Malvesi.
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